Disabled parking rule change recommended

A disabled parking placard is displayed near Civic Center Plaza on Friday May, 17, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. People with disabilities are having trouble finding parking in San Francisco making it more difficult to access their destinations. Current disabled parking placards and blue zone policies are failing to increase access for people with disabilities and reduce parking availability for all drivers. The City's Accessible Parking Policy Advisory Committee has worked together to present a better plan.

A disabled parking placard is displayed near Civic Center Plaza on Friday May, 17, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. People with disabilities are having trouble finding parking in San Francisco making it more

A disabled parking placard is displayed near Civic Center Plaza on Friday May, 17, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. People with disabilities are having trouble finding parking in San Francisco making it more difficult to access their destinations. Current disabled parking placards and blue zone policies are failing to increase access for people with disabilities and reduce parking availability for all drivers. The City's Accessible Parking Policy Advisory Committee has worked together to present a better plan.

A disabled parking placard is displayed near Civic Center Plaza on Friday May, 17, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. People with disabilities are having trouble finding parking in San Francisco making it more

Disabled drivers could be forced to feed San Francisco parking meters, a move city officials say is for their own good.

A 15-member committee, with nearly half representing the disabled community, told the city's Municipal Transportation Agency that tightening the current parking rules, as well as expanding and metering San Francisco's blue disabled parking zones, would make it easier for people with physical restrictions to find the parking spaces they need.

"We originally thought increased enforcement would solve the problem," said Ed Reiskin, the city's transportation director and co-chair of the committee, which released its recommendations Friday. But after seeing how other U.S. cities handled the problem, the committee found that "removing the incentive to park free for an unlimited amount of time is the key."

The need for changes in disabled parking won't be easy, and implementing fees and time limits needs approval at the state level.

Unintended effect

The blue "disabled" placard "was never meant to be a program that entitled people to lifetime free parking," she added.

Disabled parking has long been a hot-button issue in the city. The special license plates or placards hung on a car mirror allow drivers or passengers with mobility issues to park free for unlimited time not only in one of the city's 700 blue zones, but also in any of its 29,200 metered spaces.

"As many as 1 in 4 parking spaces are occupied by placard holders," said Carla Johnson, interim director of the Mayor's Office on Disability. "On some streets, there's a line of placard holders taking up parking spaces."

That can enrage drivers circling the streets in an often futile search for an open space, especially when they see an apparently healthy person get out of a car with a disabled placard. As Johnson delicately put it, "There's a perception that people with hidden disabilities don't deserve placards."

There's also a concern that not all of the more than 60,000 San Francisco residents with the blue placards are truly disabled. About 1,800 placards are confiscated each year for illegal use, and the problem is much wider than that.

Placards for sale

Adding to the problem are reports that some medical professionals are following the example of those in the medical marijuana industry and signing disability certificates for anyone who will pay them the going rate, which is about $750, Lorenz said.

"There are providers out there robo-signing applications," she said. Since many placards never have to be renewed, "it's a permanent, lifetime benefit for free parking."

Making changes in the disabled parking problem isn't something the city can do alone. State law bars cities from charging for disabled parking or setting time limits on its use. The committee also wants the state Department of Motor Vehicles to toughen enforcement of placard misuse by making photos of placard holders available to parking control officers and setting up a database that could show if some medical professionals are certifying huge numbers of disability applications.

San Francisco can make some of the suggested changes on its own. The committee called for creating 470 new blue zones on city streets, a 70 percent increase. And Reiskin said the city already is adding more people to its 12-person Disabled Placard Detail in an effort to ramp up enforcement.

To be reviewed

Plans now call for the committee's recommendations to go to the Mayor's Office on Disability and other community groups for review, with a formal proposal expected before the Municipal Transportation Agency board by early fall and before the Board of Supervisors by the end of the year. At best, it will be 2014 before the state acts on any city recommendations.

There's no guarantee of success. Lorenz said the committee "had an extremely rigorous discussion" about the recommendations, and few of them were approved unanimously.

But the consensus was that changes in disability parking are needed, she said. The current system isn't working, and it's people with disabilities who are paying the price.

"In the past five years, we've seen many people who want to access our services, but are unable to find parking," said Lorenz. "They just turn around and go home."